Who can receive a monetary award as a whistleblower under the Bank Secrecy Act?

The Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) uses three major criteria to define “whistleblower.”

First, a person or group must have “original information.” To qualify as “original,” information must be based on the whistleblower’s independent knowledge or analysis, and not already known to the government or available in public media reports. The BSA’s allowance for independent analysis permits whistleblowers to mine publicly available information or data for unnoticed signs of potentially unlawful conduct.

Second, the information must relate to a violation of the BSA or international monetary sanctions. The BSA requires financial institutions, ranging from banks to casinos, to implement effective anti-money laundering programs and report transactions that are potentially suspicious or involve large amounts of currency. International sanctions, in turn, prohibit financial institutions from transacting with prohibited states and parties, such as Russian oligarchs, terrorists, and narcotics traffickers.

Third, the whistleblower must report the original information, generally to the Treasury Secretary or Attorney General. But the BSA also allows whistleblowers to report information to their employer as part of their job duties. That raises the possibility that whistleblowers could obtain awards for internal reporting that leads to government enforcement actions.

A whistleblower does not have to be a U.S. citizen. Certain people are excluded, however, from qualifying as a whistleblower. The BSA does not permit payment of a whistleblower award to government employees acting within the scope of their job duties or to anyone convicted of a criminal violation related to the misconduct reported.

To learn more about the Bank Secrecy Act and other whistleblower programs, go to www.mololamken.com and follow us on LinkedIn. “Brilliant lawyers with courtroom savvy” — Benchmark Litigation. Copyright MoloLamken LLP 2025.